The Continuing Death Of Superhero Secret Identities

The secret identity is dying.

In superhero stories the secret identity allowed the superhero the ability to walk the streets without being mobbed by fans, enemies, and people demanding help for the lamest things. It protects loved ones from being attacked by supervillains or some average crook who wants to hold your sister hostage until you steal some diamond for him. It’s also good drama. How can the hero save the day and protect his secret identity, or if you’re a character like Spider-Man, how does needing to protect your identity interfere with your personal life?

However, I’m noticing more and more that in addition to losing the capes today’s heroes are losing the masks. Tony Stark lost his secret identity in one of the lamest ways they could, a back-up story in which Tony puts on his armor during a party to save a dog from traffic. New characters are missing them as well. If I could find a misstep with the new hotness in indie comics, the Rippaverse, it would be the lack of characters with secret identities. Alphacore are basically supercops, and that’s fine. However, Isom just appears to be a different name while I’m not sure Yaira has an alternate name. We’re probably missing her last name: Yaira Johanson or something. So far none of the announced Except heroes have masks, and we haven’t seen a supervillain yet. They’ve tried killing Superman’s alter-ego, Spider-Man’s alter-ego, and less and less Marvel heroes have them. The Villains Of Valley View maintain secret identities and they’re supposed to be villains in hiding. Usually a supervillain is only exposed when they’re arrested and put on trial because the villain doesn’t get the same rights as a hero.

So what’s the purpose of a secret identity and why are modern creators tossing them out with capes? I already did an overview of the purpose, but let’s dive into that and then get into why they’re dying.

The reasons for maintaining a secret identity vary from superhero to superhero. The reason most often given is to protect their loved ones. Norman Osborn, the Green Goblin, knows who Spider-Man is as does Venom as Eddie Brock. In both cases they wanted to mess with Peter Parker through his family. Norman even killed Peter’s fiancé (and some writers STILL aren’t over it) to get back at him for foiling his various plans. Look what happened in the Injustice games and comics when Joker found out Superman’s identity. He turned Lois into a bomb trigger and used Scarecrow’s fear toxin (Joker knows his chemistry enough to mess with the formula) to trick him into doing the killing. “If I can’t get Batman to turn bad I’ll try Superman and luckily this story has a writer dumb enough to think Lois is the source of his morality and not his parents and upbringing.” I’ve never understood why the Power Rangers’ enemies don’t go after the families more. Rita Repulsa did maybe two or three times and nobody after that held their families hostage. if memory serves, Evox taking over the mayor was a lucky break, not a proper plan.

That doesn’t work for He-Man. His family gets attacked all the time. His parents are the king and queen, his best friends are in the Royal Guard, and even Orko hasn’t been safe–and he’s the court jester. Skeletor has also kidnapped Adam a couple of times. Why maintain a secret identity? As he told Master Sebrian in The New Adventures Of He-Man, Skeletor is powerful enough to defeat him in his true form, Adam. We seen that with pre-52 Captain Marvel/Shazam, where villains who knew Billy’s identity would go after him in that form rather than Captain Shazam.

“Well then they shouldn’t change back.”

The 2000s Prince Adam wanted to be more than He-Man’s other clothes. He’s my favorite take on Adam.

Yeah, that was my problem with the previous idea for a Shazam! movie before Geoff Johns got it changed to his corrupted version, where Billy was a jerk and two Marvels were replaced by the Shazam Rangers. Your telling the character to give up their real selves. Billy is a kid and would still want to be a kid. Adam is a prince and given Eternia’s history letting people know that their leader could turn into someone so powerful nobody could stop him doesn’t breed confidence that the reigns of Miro and Randor were not flukes in their lineage of royalty. You know the guys who used a growing plant to smother an enemy in their own homes versus the last two kings the people actually liked.

This does run into the problem with modern superheroes: writers don’t believe the heroes would have a normal life. Check out the secret identity debate between Stewdippin and NerdSync from 2015. Notice that two of Stewdippin’s examples are comedies. The Powerpuff Girls stand out in a crowd with their inhuman eyes and their only parent is Professor Utonium, and the only ones who want to waste time with him are after something he has. Chemical X, controlling the Girls, paying his overpriced diner bill…I said it was a comedy! The same for Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable’s adventures. His parents aren’t worth worrying about to the types of villains they deal with. As far as Sam Rami’s Peter Parker…yeah, as NerdSync noted in his response, that’s already trending on Tik Tok in the real world. When Peter revealed his identity in the comics, Aunt May was shot with creation’s most persistent bullet wound and Peter had to make a devil deal to give up his marriage to save her and restore his secret. That’s more in line with what would happen to Peter. In the first movie Green Goblin even goes after her and Mary Jane after figuring out Peter’s secret.

So why can’t so many writers interested in killing the secret identity? These current writers do have a problem with wanting to be famous and not understanding why someone would want to be “normal”. So lots of them are losing their hero identities. He-Man keeps losing his from recent comics to Netflix’s offerings. They tried to out Superman…a sentence that takes on new meaning these days…but they finally relented and returned the secret identities for Clark and Jon. Although, I have yet to hear any story about Jon using his secret identity since all the press around him is “gay Superman going to rallies and kissing his boyfriend” so it’s a moot point to have a secret identity if you don’t use it. They can’t write a story featuring a normal person who turns super for awhile and then goes back to a normal life until the next adventure.

Notice in this story it’s CLARK that remembers his past not only as Superboy but his family, something that SUPERMAN has to remember so they can be rejoined. “Clark” is “Superman’s” connection to the people he saves.

The superhero’s humanity is aided by spending time in their secret identity, around other people who just treat him like “one of us”. Except current writers only see the super and not the hero. Superman’s self-view isn’t Superman or Kal-El but Clark Kent. It’s how he lives most of his life, becoming Superman only when people need help or the Justice League team meeting. Today’s writers can’t give up the big epic story, though. Look at the current length of comic stories or how every arc is some world-shattering super event to the point that “epic” stories are kind of boring. Eventually the explosions aren’t as fun when you see them every day. It’s why Christmas is once a year.

I want to see the secret identity back, to see the human side of the hero and why he or she does what they do. I want to see the drama caused with figuring out how to save the day without revealing themselves, questioning if at some point they’ll have to reveal themselves to protect the innocent. The times I see that are pretty cool, like when the Space Power Rangers revealed themselves to protect Angel Grove even though they didn’t have access to their powers anymore. That was an inspirational moment, but also the final episode. Not every hero needs a secret identity. The Lightspeed Rescue, SPD, and RPM Rangers were part of a special unit, but most of the other teams had to keep their identity a secret because some normal crook could force them to do their bidding even if the usual big bad of that team didn’t bother with their loved ones. Captain America, at least the original, would be too well known when Steve Rogers came back unless the government kept that secret all those decades until he was done with his ice bath. Alphacore are a bunch of superhero cops. Green Lanterns kept their identities secret on Earth even though they were cops in space. Not sure about these days, and both Guy Gardner and John Stewart didn’t have anyone to worry about among the Earth villains I guess. Then again, who’d hang around Guy Gardner willingly?

No capes, no masks, just uniforms that tell you exactly who they are. Uniforms are for soldiers and police officers, but superheroes are supposed to be something cooler. This has been more a collection of thoughts than a planned out article because it’s a topic I’ve brought up quite often. I’m just getting annoyed that one of the things that sets superheroes apart from people with superpowers are going away. It feels like part of the superhero concept itself is disappearing.